Last One Standing
by Ultra-Geek
Summary: It wasn’t right that he was the only one left, and it wasn’t right that he was the last one standing.


**Title: **Last One Standing  
**Author: **Ultra-Geek  
**Rating: **T  
**Summery: **It wasn't right that he was the only one left, and it wasn't right that he was the last one standing.  
**Disclaimer: **Yeah…I don's own anything

"_I'm just a man, I'm not a hero  
Just a boy, who had to sing this song  
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero  
I don't care!"  
My Chemical Romance, Welcome to the Black Parade_

This wasn't right.

Their story was one of heroic proportions. Their's was that of legends. And in the legends, the good always triumphed in a flash, in a blinding last charge and blaze of glory. The evil would be vanquished in flash of fire and brimstone, and the shadow would be withdrawn from the land. But all of that splendor, all of the legendary final ultimatums were just that: Legends. They were stories from thousands of years ago, of heroes long gone. But in the end, they were only stories.

And this wasn't right.

She wasn't supposed to go the way that she did. They had found Katara's body, broken, bloodied, and almost mangled beyond belief. It was painfully obvious that she'd been tortured and interrogated. It came out that she'd been given a choice: Reveal the Avatar's location or die. She'd chosen death. Sokka found this out before killing her murder. Toph and he made the unspoken decision to not tell Aang. But they knew that he knew anyways.

The Avatar wasn't supposed to have been defeated. Aang, by all rights, never should've been in the Avatar State when the eclipse came. That Yu-yaan archer should've never been lying in wait, covered by the underbrush. That arrow should've never gone straight through his back. But it had, and no one could save him. The last airbender had died before his limp body smashed gracelessly into the ground. And with him died the hopes of millions, and the millions of Avatars before him.

Toph went the way she would've wanted, had she wanted to go. The thick of a fight, Sokka and she had stood back to back. But there were too many of them, and reinforcements were to far away. Slowly but surely, the firebenders drove them apart, and the last thing she ever said was, "Come and get me, you cowards!" They took her up on her offer. The last thing that Sokka remembered was a flash of fire coming through the fight towards his face.

When he awoke in the rebel camp, he had a scar to rival Zuko's. And instead of hiding away as he had every right to, instead of finding a distant corner in his mind to retreat to, to hide from all the pain in, he wore it as a badge, as a symbol of what he needed to do.

Without much surprise or resistance from the rebellion, Sokka quickly took command. He became the driving force, the thing that they all stood for. But with that, he also became the poster boy for the Fire Nation's most wanted. He'd volunteer quickly for the dangerous missions, the ones most people would label as suicidal.

But the spirits had always had liked to mess with him, and he never was killed. Often, he was the only survivor. Sokka would often fall asleep at night wishing he'd been the first to go rather than the last, or that he'd never even met Aang.

Because if he'd never met Aang, then Katara and he would be alive at the South Pole, and Aang would be safely sealed in ice, and Toph would be kicking ass in an earthbending tournament.

But then he knows that that wouldn't do, because then the world wouldn't have a chance anyways. At least they didn't die for nothing, Sokka would tell himself. But it didn't dull the pain, not in the least. It almost made it worse.

Two years later when the rebels were making what would be their final stand, it wasn't right that he was the only one of four left. It wasn't right that at this, what should've been he and his family charging forward as one in a final blaze of glory, was only him. They had been to close to even be called family anymore. They had been one entity.

Toph had been the muscle, keeping them moving no matter what the circumstance.

Katara had been the heart, pumping passion and life and cause to why they were doing what they were doing.

Aang had been the spirit that wove through like a golden thread in a grand tapestry.

Sokka was the head, the one with the plan, the skeptic, and the one to think first and act later. And a head was fair useless without a body.

But that was all that was left, and every time one of them left him, a part of him went too. Because they hadn't been four for an unbelievably long time. They had become one.

So it wasn't right that Sokka was the one leading the charge on the Fire Nation in a blinding last charge. It wasn't right that he was the one who had lived to tell the tale. It wasn't right that they all died painfully and alone. It wasn't right that he had an army at his back, and it wasn't right that _they weren't there with him._

Because in the end, beneath all of the sorrow and pain, and the almost impenetrable crust that's born of a tragic life, and the face that was much to old for his years, Sokka was just a boy with a boomerang, who didn't ask for all of that flying and magic.


End file.
